The nuns and the other girls knew that I’d become friends with Mary, and they also knew I loved her, and I think it was the nuns who told the Mother Superior.
She was waiting for me on my way out of the chapel one day and told me to follow her to the office. She talked at length and beautifully about Mary and about God and said that for me to be close to them, she wanted me to work as the assistant to the nun who took care of the chapel, the sacristan director, Sor Teofilita. At first I was scared—I didn’t know if she wanted to punish me—but when I saw her take a piece of candy from her desk drawer, I realized she was offering me this job out of kindness.
The work was long and sometimes lasted late into the night. She told me I wouldn’t be obliged to follow the rules like the other girls, that I’d have certain responsibilities. Just hearing that word made me feel that I was being helped by Mary after all.
Sor Teofilita came for me at five in the afternoon. First she showed me the flowers, more beautiful than any I’d ever seen. The ones beneath the Midget were small and ugly and didn’t smell as nice as these. She went one by one and told me each of their names—like us, they had names. They were each dressed differently, so lovely and colorful, and when you touched them, each had a different feel. She taught me to treat them very carefully so they wouldn’t tear. Some had wonderful odors, and others just smelled like the countryside.
The work was hard. We had to wash the floors of the chapel, the sacristy, and the tiny room near the front where the priest entered to lead mass. We had to change the water in the flower vases every day, something I didn’t like at all. I don’t know if the flowers pooped and peed, but the vases smelled horrible, and I had to wash the stems too. Of course when the vases were too big, Sor Teofilita helped me bring them down and set them up again. The big holidays were terrible, because we set up twice as many flower vases and twice as many candlesticks. The ordinary candlesticks were copper, but for holidays they were silver, and I was the one who had to clean them, polish them, and set them up. It took me a long time to learn the names of all the vestments, the long shirts and layers, all embroidered, as well as the various rags the priest wore around his neck, around his waist, and on his arms before saying mass . . .
On holidays I’d sometimes not make it to bed until midnight, so exhausted that I’d get under the covers fully dressed; one time the nun who looked after us in the dormitory saw, and she punished me for it, making me kneel in the center of the chapel during mass for three days, so the other girls and the priest could see I was bad and disobedient. The truth is I only did this three times, and of course the Mother Superior didn’t like it, but each time she’d forgive me, threatening that next time she’d take away my job for being unworthy of spending my days before God and Mary. In those days, I didn’t know how to read or write, but the kindhearted Sor Teofilita taught me to read the colors on pieces of paper she left me, so I’d know the color of that day’s chasuble, or if we needed cloths for the altar or the communion table.
Sor Teofilita and I had a seat and a prie-dieu for kneeling set up in the tiny room at the side of the chapel. We watched mass from here, but when it was time for communion we came into the chapel proper, up to the altar, to receive communion. Afterward I chatted a bit with God and Mary and then raced off to the kitchen swinging a censer through the air as I crossed the four courtyards. I was all alone, and to tell the truth I was so happy in those moments that I even skipped with both feet. There was an old black lady, the cook, named Bolita, and I loved her very much and gave her kisses. She lit the censer for me. Sor Teofilita told me not to believe that was her real name, that they called her that because she was fat with large breasts and sang all day in a tremulous voice. There was another old lady, as bitter as a lemon, who made bread, and after she’d locked up the bakery and gone to her room, we’d tie a fork to a broomstick and steal the bread that sat cooling by the window. After mass I had to run to the kitchen to take the priest his breakfast. The pot was so heavy I held my breath while carrying it so it wouldn’t fall . . .
The priest’s breakfast was so good, so good, and I wanted so badly to eat it that my mouth watered. Eggs with diced tomato and onion, chocolate, fruit juice, various kinds of bread and pastries made by the nuns, kept in covered tin boxes. On occasion the priest gave me one or two of the pastries, and I would run beneath the stairs to eat them so no one could see me.